Assoc ProfessorDeirdre O'Donnell

Dr. Deirdre O’Donnell (Ph.D., H. Dip Stats, M.Phil., BA) is an Associate Professor of Health Systems at the UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems, and Subject Head of Health Systems. She is Deputy Director of the UCD Centre for Research, Education, and Innovation in Health Systems (UCD IRIS). 

Dr. O’Donnell is a proponent of system-embedded research and the translation of research evidence into health service innovation, evaluation, and reform. She has over ten years experience of developing and translating research evidence for innovation and reform in older people’s health and social care. This includes researching teamwork and interprofessional collaboration in the specialist community care of older people, health service model programme evaluation, supported decision-making in health and social care, elder abuse prevention and intervention, and later life well-being.

Dr O’Donnell is a member of the Irish Gerontological Society, a UCD PPI IGNITE Executive Board member as well as a member of the Research and Policy Advisory Committee for Family Carers Ireland. She has a strong track record of collaborative and co-design research with older people and with family carers and is a co-founder of the OPEN Network which aims to promote the involvement of older people in academic health and social care research. Her research emphasises participatory collaboration and a user-driven approach to health policy development, implementation, evaluation, and reform.

She is currently PI for an HRB-funded Investigator Led Award (ECLECTIC) which is evaluating interprofessional collaboration within community specialist teams integrating the health and social care of older people in Ireland. ECLECTIC involves a partnership with the National Clinical Programme for Older People (NCPOP) and collaboration with Age Friendly Ireland and Family Carers Ireland. The project aims to understand what works to support interprofessional collaboration in community specialist teams for older people and why it works. It also seeks to know what doesn’t work and why not. In addition, the project will explore the perspectives of older people and family carers on what is important to them when receiving care from a healthcare team.

Dr O’Donnell has ten years of teaching experience in SNMHS undergraduate and postgraduate programmes where she has led the development and reform of curriculum for evidence synthesis and translation. She is a member of the EVIBEC collaborative; an interdisciplinary team of academics from the UCD College of Health Sciences with a common interest in the design and delivery of Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) education. With the support of funding from the HEA and the National Forum, the EVIBEC collaborative developed a cross-discipline, vertically integrated learning outcomes framework to support EPB curriculum development, delivery, and sharing of resources across entry-level health care professional programmes.